WI BIO - Dane Co - HASTINGS, Samuel D.
Biographical Review of Dane County, WI. Chicago: Biographical Review Pub. Co. 
1893, Vol II, pp 410-413

Hon. Samuel D. HASTINGS was born 24 Jul 1816 in Leicester, Worcester County, 
MA. His maternal grandfather, McINTOSH, was a soldier in the [p 411] 
Revolutionary War and was of Scotch descent, and his mother possessed in a 
marked degree, decision of character, independence of thought, and ardent 
devotion for her children. These elements doubtless stamped her son with 
some of his noblest traits. His father was of English ancestry, of noble 
blood and ancestry, and was a lineal descendant of Thomas HASTINGS, who in 
1634 settled in Watertown, MA [Watertown established in 1634, and located in 
Middlesex County since the county was established in 1643], and who long held 
important positions in both State and church. The old family motto was, "In 
truth is victory."

Samuel D. HASTING's early life was spent in Boston [Suffolk County], MA, 
where his school training was limited to the first 13 years of his life, and 
from the age of 14 to 30 his home was in Philadelphia, PA. While engaged in 
the duties incident to the beginning of mercantile life, he pursued a course 
of practical study. In his public life he has always experienced a need of 
assuring science, but has much more frequently reaped the benefit of the 
practical culture acquired by that self drill and self dependence in youth. 
Before 21, through the aid of a gentleman from his native village, he was 
established in business for himself. Although always engaged in some active 
business, he never allowed the acquirement of money to be the sole aim of his 
life, otherwise he might be numbered among the wealthy of the land; but the 
reformatory and philanthropic movements of the times always engrossed much of 
his time and energies. Entertaining interest in human affairs, he could not 
forego the responsibility of a conscientious citizen and allow himself to 
drift on the tide of events without an effort for public reform.

The antislavery movement was one of the political questions which engrossed 
his attention. When other young men of his age and natural endowments sought 
success in acquiring property and seeking political preferment, Samuel D. 
HASTINGS threw himself into the antislavery movement. He helped to found the 
Liberty party, and the fact that he was elected the chairman of the State 
Central Committee in PA proves at once his courage and the possession of 
those qualities that go to make up the successful leader. All through his 
public career he has been an earnest advocate of universal freedom and 
education.

In 1846 Samuel D. HASTINGS settled in Walworth County while WI was still a 
Territory [WI became a state in 1848], and he has been identified as an 
active citizen with the history of the State. He was first elected Justice 
of the Peace without his consent or even knowledge; and equally, without his 
solicitation or cognizance, he was in 1848 nominated for the Legislature, the 
nomination resulting in his election by a large majority. He went to 
Madison, WI, in 1849 as a member of the first regular winter session of the 
Legislature after WI was admitted to the Union. During that session he 
delivered a speech on the subject of slavery, opposing its extension and 
denouncing all legislation which in any way favored the slave trade. This 
speech was published and widely circulated, and was afterward republished as 
one of the documents of the American Anti-Slavery Society. The resolutions 
for which he spoke and of which, as chairman of the Select Committee, he was 
author, passed both houses, irrevocably committing WI to the principles he so 
ably advocated.

In 1852 Samuel D. HASTINGS removed to LaCrosse [LaCrosse County, WI], where 
in many ways he was recognized as cooperative in building up the town and 
promoting its institutions. He afterward removed to Trempealeau 
[Trempeauleau County, WI], a new town on the Mississippi. [Trempeauleau 
County was established in 1854.] In 1856 Mr. HASTINGS was again brought into 
public life by a second election to the State [p 412] Legislature, and in the 
fall of 1857 he was elected Treasurer of the State, which office he held for 
four consecutive terms of two years each. This sketch would be incomplete 
without some allusions to the services of Samuel D. HASTINGS during our last 
great war. The management of our finances in those troubled times called for 
the highest ability, and WI was fortunate in having at the head of her 
financial department one whose wise and careful management did much to save 
the credit of the State, to secure to our people a better monetary system, 
and to proved the means to enable the State to respond to all calls made by 
the Nation. In negotiating the State loan in 1861, for the purpose of 
securing funds for carrying on the war, Mr. HASTINGS acted with promptness 
and discretion. Under his management a financial panic was prevented, and 
our home currency was placed on a much firmer basis.

During all of his political career, with all of its cares, toils, and 
temptations, Samuel D. HASTINGS was an earnest advocate of temperance reform; 
from early boyhood he always found time and means to spend in this cause. He 
never drank liquor or used tobacco, and was energetic in measures designed to 
remove the curse from others, embracing every opportunity of making speeches, 
encouraging legislation and attending temperance organizations. With his 
pen, too, he has always been active in the cause. He was, and is now an 
occasional correspondent for many of the Good Templar and Prohibition papers 
in the U. S. and in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. He 
has spoken on some phase of the temperance question in nearly every state of 
the Union, in Canada, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and in nearly every 
city and large town in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, and on the 
questions of slavery and temperance in every county and almost every town in 
WI. He arose to the position of Grand Worthy Patriarch of WI in the order of 
Sons of Temperance, and was sent as a delegate to the National Division at 
Chicago.

In Feb 1857 Samuel D. HASTINGS became a member of I. O. G. T., and has ever 
since retained his membership. He is now Treasurer of the National 
Prohibition Committee, also the State Prohibition Committee, and he was for 
20 years one of the trustees of Beloit College [Rock County, WI]. In Jul 
1873, while a representative of the Grand Lodge of WI to the Right Worthy 
Lodge of Good Templars, held in London, England, he was elected Right Worthy 
Grand Templar, the chief officer of the Good Templar order throughout the 
world. This was the sixth time he had been chosen head of this order. He 
has been Vice President of the National Temperance and Publication House for 
15 years.

In social and church circles Samuel D. HASTINGS has ever been active and his 
work in these fields has called him almost constantly to positions of labor 
and responsibility, and the duties discharged in these departments called for 
ability as marked as those wielded in the important positions filled by him 
as a State officer. At the age of 16 years he united with the church, and 
has been Trustee, Treasurer, and Deacon of the Congregational Church, 
Superintendent of the Sunday school, President of the WI State Sunday school 
Convention, Moderator of the Triennial Convention of Congregational Ministers 
and Delegates from the churches in the Northwestern States, [p 413] Corporate 
Member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
Secretary, Treasurer, and President of the WI Sunday school Assembly.

The confidence with which he has inspired his fellow men and the hold he had, 
and now has, upon the hearts of people are clearly shown by the offices he 
has been called upon to fill. He has been Town Clerk, Justice of the Peace, 
Chairman of the Town Board of Supervisors, also of the County Board of 
Supervisors, member of the WI Legislature for two terms, State Treasurer for 
four terms, Secretary of the Board of Charities, Trustee of the State 
Hospital for the Insane, Treasurer of the WI Academy of Science, Art and 
Letters, and Curator of the State Historical Society, a splendid record, 
surely, and one that fitly mirrors forth the man. In the interest of some of 
these institutions he was commissioned to visit and report upon similar ones 
in Great Britain, which he did during his travels in that country in 1873. 
Samuel D. HASTINGS is ever at the service of the public, in whatever good 
work commands his rare business talents. For many years he was Treasurer and 
Director of the Madison Mutual Insurance Company, Director of the Madison 
Manufacturing Company, and also of the City Gas Works.

Samuel D. HASTINGS was married 01 Aug 1837 to Miss Margaret SHUBERT, of 
Philadelphia, PA. They have three children: Samuel D., Jr., Judge of the 
14th Circuit of WI, residing at Green Bay [Brown County], WI; Emma M., 
married to H. R. HOBART, now editor of the Railway Age, Chicago, IL; and 
Florence L., married to Henry W. HOYT, of the Gates Iron Works of Chicago, 
IL. The home of Samuel D. HASTINGS is an attractive brick residence on the 
corner of Lake and Langdon Streets [Madison, Dane County, WI]. His gift of 
business thoroughness and integrity in the world is no more a characteristic 
than are the graces of the home circle, of which he is the head and soul. 
His wife has the rich grace of a high order of womanhood, and artistic taste 
in working up the endless details into the harmony of a home. Though life 
Samuel D. HASTINGS has been a tireless and unselfish worker and his 
principles have enshrined themselves in his works. He is an effective 
speaker, a ready writer, a good organizer, a genial, just and philanthropic 
man.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly